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“Wake up!”Tap jolts, blinking rapidly behind his sunglasses. Sleep? No, he wasn’t just sleeping. Sitting. Resting before a long day, but he wasn’t sleeping again, nuh-uh. A masked face is glaring right at him, at eye level for once. Okay, okay, maybe he was sleeping a little bit. “Mmn... fine,” he mumbles, standing unsteadily. “‘m up. No more yelling.”“I’ll leave without you if you aren’t ready in five minutes,” his partner threatens anyway. Now that he’s on his feet, she stands a good foot and a half lower and has to tilt her head up to see his face.“No you won’t.”“No, I won’t. I’ll nag, though.”“But it’s so early,” he groans. “Five... five, what, thirty?”“Stop whining, Tap. At least we get to see the sunrise.”He rolls eyes eyes and fastens his thigh straps, “It’s just a sunrise, Bug. We see it everyday.”“That’s what I’m saying, you dumbass.”With a noncommittal grunt and a final adjustment to his balaclava, he gives her a lazy nod to lead the way. Bug is not a morning person either, but she’s far more used to this. The bags under her eyes have become a permanent feature of her aging face. She walks the empty halls with the confidence of someone who both knows their surroundings and lives in a perpetual state of sleep deprivation. They haven’t ever seen each other well rested. In fact, he realizes that he hasn’t ever seen her sleep for more than six hours. She had to grab his arm to pull him out of his thoughts, disappearing into the doorway just a second later. It isn’t until he finally makes it through that the smell hits him.“Ooooh, yes,” he smiles. “Coffee, my saviour.”“Grab me a cup too, would you? I’m gonna get the good donuts before they’re gone.”“M’kay. Blueberry?”“Mhm.”The coffee is, in plain terms, terrible. In fact, it can hardly be called coffee at all. More like bitter dishwater with some coffee grounds thrown in so that they can all pretend it is safe to consume. He leaves his black, already resigned to the revolting taste. Bug prefers hers with unhealthy doses of creamer and sugar, so he toys around with the little cups and packets. It’s hard enough with A few minutes later, he hands her a warm cup in return for breakfast folded in a thin white napkin.“Why don’t you just have a cup of warm milk?” he asks.“Why do you drink this battery acid?” she returns. “It’s all about the caffeine. It also tastes a little bit better than drinking it plain. That’s disgusting. How aren’t you puking?”He chuckles. “Practice.”They nod to the others that stifled yawns as they enter the break room and give nearly apologetic grins to the new kid who shows up late. Eventually he’ll learn that all that awaits him is a single stale donut sitting in the bottom of the box. None of the officers are morning people, but the newbies always seem to be worse than the rest at rising early. Something about not being used to the schedule, or at least that’s what they try to say. Everyone knows that it’s a load of crap. Trainees survive just fine on three hours.“You know, we really are the stereotype,” she says with a tired smile. “Coffee and donuts? Really? We could try to be more imaginative.”He nods thoughtfully, “Yes, but then we would be eating donuts.”“Good point.”By the time that their headsets begin to buzz with morning chatter, they’re swallowing the last bits of the bitter excuse for a brew and tossing their napkins.“What’re we doing today?” he asks.“The same thing we do everyday, Pinky,” she smirks, mouth still visible thanks to her rolled-up balaclava. “We’ve got two repair jobs left. There’s a retrieval job this afternoon, though.”“Retrieval? What a treat.”Bug rolls her eyes and reaches up to tug at his vest. He leans down for her and she goes up on her toes to press a quick kiss to his lips. When she lets him stand back up, they both pull their balaclavas down over their smiles.“Don’t die today,” she reminds him.“Same to you,” he replies.With that, they head out onto the heating sand.